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Monday, June 30, 2008

Outside of this arena - in the places I've been traveling all over the country for the last month - I have sensed a deep sense of sadness among many people I talk to, whether they are local political activists, local journalists or working people just grinding away at their jobs. The feeling transcends any one political issue, primarily because while political junkies think in terms of "issues," most regular people don't. It's not that people are unhappy or morose - but underneath our society there is an ever-present thrum of despair, and I can't help but think it has at least something to do with the sense that major institutions and voices are no longer are just passively incompetent, but are actively trying to harm/ignore regular people as those institutions and voices become consumed with the self-absorbed narcissistic media/political culture that I just described.

Since the last uprising of the late 1970s, this sense of persecution - or subjugation psychology, as I call it in my book - has been aimed at the government. That was thanks, in part, to effective demagoguery by the conservative movement. But today, the subjugation psychology impacts everything. Polls show the country has lost confidence in big business and banks. They also show people think the media is a joke. The list goes on.

As this alienation has intensified, the insularity of the political and media Establishment has gotten worse - thus intensifying the alienation even further.

This underlying sentiment forms the basis of Sirota's book. More importantly, it fuels support for candidates like this, who are embracing a new kind of campaign and a new kind of politics.

Not many understand the true definition of Populism, but most Americans and the candidates that draw their support are already knee deep in the movement that began in 2006.